SYDNEY FLIER KILLED

Otago Witness, Issue 3327, 19 December 1917, Page 27

SYDNEY FLIER KILLED

FALL, OF 10,000 FEET. After three years of war, during -which ho wae nearly killed several times, _ was wounded twice, and had about 20 stitches inserted in hjs head and face, Flight-lieu-tenant Arthur S. Talbot, formerly of the headquarters station of the New South. Wales Fire Brigade, lost his life recently a? the result of an accident in England. With Lieutenant Malcolm, who was making only his second flight, he was essaying a spiral descent at an E«ex aerodrome, when he collided with another aeroplane. Both occupants were dashed to the ground and killed. _ Lieutenant Talbot, who was only 28, was born at Darlinghurst, and after spending five years in Navy in Australian waters joined the Fire Brigade. For about three years he was a fireman at the headquarter* of the brigade in Castlereagh street, Sydney, and during that time became a competent motor driver, and generally obtained a knowledge of mechanics which stood him in good stead later on. Shortly before tho outbreak of war he left the brigade, and accepted a noeition as" a chauffeur in Sydney ; but soon after the war gong had been sounded he went into camp. He left with the first motor transport in October, 1914, and on the trip over acted as a gun-layer on his troopship. ACCIDENT IN ENGLAND.

Talbot met with his first aerial accident while on a hundred miles' cross-country flight from Lincoln to Birmingham. It was verv cold and thick up above, and he could not fly higher than 200 ft At Nottingham the air was so thick that he was forced down to 50ft, and, after missing two chimneys and a church spire by a few feet, he noticed that his oil was disappearing, and consequently knew that his engine was freezing. He was looking round for a landing place, when the engine stopped. The machine got out of control, and, striking a tree, nose-dived to the ground. The aeroplane was wrecked, and Talbot had hh jaw fractured and nine teeth knocked out. BROUGHT DOWN BY "ARCHIES.?* Talbot joined the air forces at the front early this year, and, writing from hospital in May, he told a thrilling story of an extremely exciting adventure he had over the German lines. _ ...^ " I am now suffering from a bad ecaip wound," he wrote. "I received it in a scrap over Bassee. I was flying a .French machine, and with five others went over the German lines in offensive patrol. When at 16,000 ft, and well over the lines, I had engine trouble, and was forced to leave the formation, as I could not keep up with the other machines. I tried to get back to our lines, when two Huns attacked m*». •'They did not do any damage, however, for I piit my machine into a spinning nosedive and outmanoeuvred them. '• When I came to I was in a clearing station hospital two miles inside oar lines."